CHAPTER XVII

FROM OUT THE PAST

In the meantime, Jeanne, having returned from her little voyage of discovery on Isle Royale, was learning something of life as it went forward at Chippewa Harbor. Here, on the shores of a little cove, Holgar Carlson, a sturdy Scandinavian fisherman, had his home. There were four children; two girls, Violet and Vivian, about the same age as Jeanne, and two small boys. From November until April no boats visit the island. It would be difficult to picture a more completely isolated spot. And yet Violet and Vivian, who were to be Jeanne’s companions, were never lonesome. They had their duties and their special interests which kept them quite fully employed. And, had they but known it, the coming of Jeanne meant mystery and unusual discoveries.

“Discovery.” Ah, yes, to Vivian, the younger and more active of the two sisters, this was one grand word. On this unusual island she had made many a discovery.

“This,” she was saying to Jeanne with the air of one about to display rich treasures, “is our curiosity shop. Not everyone who comes to Chippewa Harbor gets a peek in here.”

After removing a heavy padlock she swung wide a massive door of varnished logs.

“You see,” she explained as Jeanne’s eyes wandered from one article to another displayed on the shelves of the narrow room, “each article here has something to do with the history of Isle Royale.”

“Only look!” Jeanne exclaimed. “Arrowheads and spear points of copper! A gun—such an old looking one! A pistol, too, and a brass cannon. Some very queer axes! Did you find them all by yourself?” she asked in surprise.

“Oh, my, no!” Vivian laughed. “They come from all over the island. Fishermen are constantly finding things. Some were found where long lost villages have been, or around deserted mines. Then, too, some were taken up in nets.”

“In nets?” Jeanne’s voice showed astonishment.

“You’d be surprised!” Vivian’s face glowed. She had something truly interesting to tell.

“We set our nets close to the lake bottom. Sometimes the water is deep, sometimes shallow, but always the net is on the bottom. Storms come and bring things rolling in. The waves work heavy objects over our nets. If a net is strong enough, when it is lifted, up they come.

“And not so easily either!” she amended. “Sometimes it takes a lot of pulling and hauling. Not so fine when it’s freezing on shore and snow is blowing in your eyes. If you get a log in your net, all water soaked, and so long you never see both ends of it if you work for an hour, then the net slips from your half-frozen fingers, and it’s just too bad! The net is gone forever.

“Look.” She put a hand on some hard mass that rested on the lower shelf. “We brought that up in our net.”

“What is it?” Jeanne asked.

“Lift it.” Vivian smiled.

Lightly Jeanne grasped it. Then she let out a low exclamation. “Whew! How heavy!”

“Eighty pounds,” said Vivian, not without a show of pride. “Solid copper.

“You see,” she went on, allowing her eyes to sweep the place, “it is just this that has made me realize that history and geography are not just dull things to be studied and forgotten. When father brought in that mass of copper, I wanted to know all about it, how it got there and all that.

“Well,” she sighed, “I didn’t find out everything, because no one seems to know whether it was put in its present form by the grinding of glaciers or by the heat of a volcano. I did find out a great deal, though.

“Then,” she hurried on, “one day while I was hoeing in our garden I found this.” She held up a copper spear point. “It belonged to the time when Indians roamed the island, building huge fires; then cracking away the rocks, they uncovered copper. I read all I could about that.

“Then—” she caught her breath. “Then Mr. Tolman over at Rock Harbor gave me this.” She held up a curious sort of pistol. “They called it a pepper-box. It is more than a hundred years old. Perhaps it belongs to fur-trading days, perhaps to the beginning of the white copper-hunter. Anyway, it took me along in my study. And—”

“And the first thing you knew,” Jeanne laughed, “history and geography had come alive for you.”

“Yes, that’s it!” Vivian smiled her appreciation.

“But look!” Jeanne exclaimed. “What’s this? And where did it come from? Looks as if it had been at the bottom of the sea for a hundred years.”

“Not quite a hundred years perhaps,” Vivian said slowly, “and not at the bottom of the ocean; only Lake Superior. It’s an old-fashioned barrel-churn, and we caught it in a net.”

“How very strange!” Jeanne examined it closely. “It’s all screwed up tight.”

“Yes,” said Vivian, “the fastenings are all corroded. You couldn’t open it without tearing it up, I guess. It’s empty.” She tapped it with the ancient pistol butt, and it gave forth a hollow sound. “So what’s the use of destroying a fine relic just to get a smell of sour buttermilk fifty or more years old?” She laughed a merry laugh.

“But you got it in a net at the bottom of the lake?” Jeanne’s face wore a puzzled look.

“About fifty feet down.”

“If it’s full of air it would float,” Jeanne reasoned, “so it can’t be quite empty.”

“Lift it. Shake it,” Vivian invited.

Jeanne complied. “That’s queer!” she murmured after shaking the small copper-bound barrel-churn vigorously. “It’s heavy enough to sink, yet it _does_ appear to be empty.”

As Jeanne lay in her tiny chamber that night with the distant roar of old Superior in her ears, she found herself confronted with two mysteries. One was intriguing, the other rather startling and perhaps terrible. The first was the mystery of the unopened churn, the other that of those figures and letters with a circle, D.X.123.